++Eggstravaganza++

Gotta love a corny pun here and there.

Last week Mark's parents came down for Spring Break. The funny part was that Wyatt was on Spring Break too. I guess even pre-schoolers need some time off, ha (we all know it's the teachers...). Wyatt spent most of his time LOVING the two-on-one attention from his grandparents. The de-programming hasn't been that bad this week.

The trip included a stop at the Children's Museum. We took Wyatt into the little store this time and he LOVED it. Blatantly ignoring the signs that said to limit items to three per cart. My favorite part is that he is in a ketchup phase right now (we have to remind him he has to take a bite of the food too, not just suck the ketchup off) and he totally filled his cart with all of the ketchup. He also spotted the mandarin oranges and took a few of those as well. Too funny.

The in-laws and I took Wyatt to the Germantown Easter Egg Hunt. My general analysis is that it was a bust. Capped off by the fact that my father-in-law duped me into a false start when some other kids starting running. We were so focused on Wyatt we neglected to notice we were alone on the field. I didn't include the photo of that in here to save a little bit of face. Good thing we only know a couple of people here...bad thing is that one of them saw me and gave me a hard time. Here's Wyatt checking out the lambs at the petting zoo.

So glad we waited in line for fifteen minutes for this one...
This was right after Wyatt attempted to rip the head off of the duck. I don't blame him for not thinking the green duck is real (where is PETA when you need them?)
Ready for the big egg hunt. End result: 4 eggs: two with gum, one empty...but he thought the five Smarties were delicious.
Wyatt and Mom all dressed up for Easter Sunday church (he was later convinced that my necklace looked a lot like Jelly Beans and insisted on tasting for himself...no wonder I never wear jewelry).
The pace of the backyard egg hunt was much more enjoyable. He had 18 eggs. Some of them had small toys, cars or truck magnets. A few of them had one jelly bean each. Once he figured this out there was no waiting for later, we had to open them all so he could eat.
Wyatt's grandparents also bought him a new climber for the backyard. Mark and his dad put it together during bath time and Wyatt had to test it out as soon as he spotted it. He now calls it his "weee" and points to it in the backyard and says "weee".
This was the scene I came home to after running a short errand on Saturday. Wyatt is really into "helping" us. In the morning he helped me work in the yard. In the afternoon, he helped dad wash the cars. His Bompa would be so proud!

++Before and After++

Before I can update on the Easter activities, I have some old business to take care of. Mainly, my mom just wants to see pictures so I will post them here for her. It's not easy to take pictures of rooms that the little tornado hasn't blown through. These were all done at night or when he was at school.

Here's the kitchen before. I didn't get one taken before the new microwave was installed.



Here's the kitchen after. It's not my dream kitchen...but it's an improvement on what was there before. Each time we do something we learn a little bit...so when my chance for my dream kitchen comes along, we'll be pros. I sold all the old appliances on Craig's List. I must not have asked enough as I had about 10 offers within a couple of hours. I was happy to see them go to good new homes. Makes getting rid of perfectly good appliances seem a little less wasteful.

Here's the "keeping room" a.k.a. where we spend all of our time. I really love having this space. It's casual enough for toys and snacks, and I can see it (and our TV) from the kitchen. Wyatt likes the door to the outside where he watches for the garbage truck, school buses, and DADDY.

Here is the little prince's domain. It doesn't look so sparse and cavernous in real life...I promise. For comparison, the rug in front of the rocking chair used to take up the majority of open floor space in his old room. He likes it in there. We've been having to coax him out of his crib in the morning. Especially since we changed to the alphabet crib sheet. He likes to point out all the recognizable objects to us.

We're so excited to have our fabulous friends the Dusoskys coming into town this weekend. We can't wait to share everything Memphis has to offer with them...and then have two other days to hang out when we are done with that! I'm interested to see how Wyatt adjusts to having two other kids in his house. It will be a good lesson in sharing, which he really needs these days.

++Two weeks ago...++

...I went to Minnesota and Minnesota came to Tennessee! Here's a quick view of what was dubbed the biggest snowstorm in years down here. We try to keep our snickers to ourselves. Notice the driveway...Mark didn't shovel...the ground just wasn't cold enough.
We've had a couple of 70+ degree days since then. It's a good thing we have big closets because you need all your clothes all the time to keep up down here.

This is what happens when dad is in charge...he does have a hat that fits...

We just sent the in-laws off this morning. I'm a little behind on posting (and anal about getting it all up in order). I'll try to catch up soon.

Side note: it's my favorite time of the year to be a SAHM (stay at home mom for those of you not up on the lingo). NCAA Tournament time! I can watch games all day long and not feel guilty about slacking on the job. Now if I can just get Wyatt to sit down and watch with me, life would really be good!

++Bring on the pink++

We found out some fun news today. Hopefully I am not spilling the beans too early. I don't think it's a secret and I'm super excited to share. I'm getting a NIECE! Larson is getting a little sister. Most importantly, she appears to be 100% perfect. Now it's just up to me to spoil her. Susan and I have such a special relationship with our aunt so this is extra fun for me. Now I don't have to feel so guilty that yesterday Wyatt ripped a shirt that came from Larson.

++Weekend Fun++

A good time was had by everyone involved this weekend. I was treated with a trip back to cold and snowy Minnesota. It has never felt so good! My friend Sara and I threw a baby shower for Tiffany and all the girls were there (minus Linda and Jolene who were dearly missed).

Tiffany, being the hip and edgy lady that she is, requested something a bit different for her shower. Sara and I had fun with the "Rockin' baby" theme.

Mommy-to-be Tiffany

The hostesses and guest of honor

This cute guy was on the invites too. We got this great cake from here. Not only was it super-yummy but they do a great job on the decorating. Wyatt's first birthday cake came from there too.

The food and drink was inspired by happy hour (don't you love the mini hotdogs?). We made some great non-alcoholic drinks. My favorite: Safe sex on the beach.

For favors we did rock candy. Pun intended.

We played a couple of games. The favorite was guess the lullaby version of popular rock songs. Thank goodness I was exempt. I would have been horrible at it.

Cheers! A good time was had by all.

I also had the bittersweet pleasure of visiting Wyatt's old buddies. They just keep growing up...I guess he does too so it should have been expected. I was sad that he couldn't see them too. He literally spent the entire first 15-months of his life with these kids. We had them hold his picture to keep him a part of the group. The word is that Wyatt's photo has become a favorite treasure of Hudson's.

The boys survived just fine. Wyatt learned how to say Mama while I was gone. I guess absence must make the heart grow fonder. Mark took a couple of photos while I was gone. They are on the other camera so that's another post.
The kitchen is also done...but not quite all put back together yet so no "before" and "after". In my defense, I was supposed to wait a day to make sure nothing leaked under the sink. That's tomorrow's project.

++Conflicted++

I was just thinking about this this morning so I thought I would share. I'm guessing (and hoping) I'm not the only person out there going through this.

I swear I live my life in a conflicted state. There are so many things I'd like to be better at or do more of but there always seems to be something else that stands in the way:
--I want to eat less processed foods...but preparing them always seems more complicated and time consuming.
--I'd like to work out more, but that often takes away from time spent preparing healthy meals (see above).
--I'd like to eat more organic and natural foods...but don't want to spend twice as much every week on groceries.
--We'd like to live greener but I feel like no one else is on board so if I brought my own bags to the grocery store I'd be "that weird lady". They don't even recycle cardboard boxes down here!
--We'd like to have a clutter-free home but when I look at "decorated" homes they always look so nice.
--We'd like to take a more minimalist approach to toys in our house (I keep reading that less is more) but whenever I take Wyatt to a toy store and his eyes light up I see all sorts of things that would be fun to have.
--I want my house to always be clean and picked up, but I have a little tornado that blows through all day long and I start to think "what's the point?"
--We want to watch less TV to free up more time for all of the above but at night we are always too exhausted to do anything else.

I guess we are still in search of the 26 hour day. It's funny. When I signed Wyatt up for his school I thought I would have so much free time to do all sorts of fun things ( I even wrote a page long list of ideas). Here we are, 6 weeks later and I haven't tackled any of them. Hopefully it will get better when we are done with all the house projects. I am sure by then, something else will pop up.

The exciting news: the granite will be installed on Monday so this thing will be done! I can't believe how easy it has been. The dishwasher came this morning and Mark is going to attempt to install the ovens this weekend. Hopefully I don't come home to a mess!

Wyatt stayed home sick today. We're not quite sure what is wrong with him. He doesn't really have a fever. He has a bit of a cough but he just isn't himself. He wants to be held all the time and is happy to just lay around. Sitting still has never been on his agenda so we knew something was up. Hopefully he'll be better or Mark will really pay his dues this weekend.

Other news: Wyatt ate peanut butter today. He has been a horrible eater recently and this morning he was insistent on having a bite of my peanut butter toast. Remember, this kid does not eat bread. So, I gave in. He ate half a piece and proceeded to ask for more. I made him a piece with just butter on it and he ate the whole thing. Don't get too excited. I am sure bread will be on the "out" list again tomorrow. I haven't seen any signs of allergies so we are good. Funny how they have us so worked up about peanut allergies that I almost expected him to react somehow.

++Weekend Recap++

For those of you who will never visit Arkansas in your life, you can live vicariously through us and see the sights through our view. A very limited view considering our pint-sized travel companion. Here goes.

Here's Little Rock...the view of the Arkansas river...as seen from our hotel room.

Our trip included a visit to the Clinton presidential library. Pretty interesting...and our junior tourist cooperated quite well. My favorite part? The menus from the state dinners. I think I would gain 50 lbs. if I ate at the White House all the time

For Wyatt, the highlight of the weekend was this mini-truck in the gift shop of the Clinton Museum. The smiles and frantic "driving" would have lasted hours. He entertained everyone in the store.

The main event, the half-marathon, went well. This was a super-easy marathon for spectators. It starts and ends at almost the same spot and doubles-back a couple of times. We were lucky to see Mark (and Scott...and sometimes Jonnett) 5 times during the race. Wyatt was great about watching and waiting for his dad (it didn't hurt that there were police cars and fire trucks and all sorts of dogs around). He would whimper after Mark ran by us every time as if to say "What? we have been waiting for him for forever and he just kept running?" No photos of the race in progress as I would have liked...it was challenging enough to wrangle my buddy and watch for Mark all at the same time.

Giving our finisher a high-five. With little to no training (and I am not exaggerating this one) he finished in his goal time of under two hours. We don't know the exact time yet...the results haven't been updated as I write this.

Another huge hit: watching cartoons (looney toons...something he doesn't get at home) and lounging in the hotel room.

We're back to reality this week. More rain. You would think that we moved to Seattle. It rains all the time here! I'm super excited about my fun trip back HOME this weekend. The boys are looking forward to time without me as well, I am sure.

++Superstar++

Mark did great in the race today, despite his lack of training (wish something like that would be so easy for me). We were superstar cheerers too. It's hard work to cheer for runners...it requires a lot of strategy and planning to get in just the right place. In case any of you heard about this, I just wanted to post and say that we are all safe and sound (unlike our inner circle was after the TC Marathon!!). Photos to come after bedtime tonight.